Photography In Marketing

There are only a few brands that I follow religiously. These brands are ones I've been in love with since High School or College, so it's fair to say they're doing something right.

Krochet Kids Intl. is one of those brands you can't help but fall in love with. They have a compelling story that they share beautifully, high-quality garments that will last forever, and they're a brand that gives back, making you feel good with every purchase. They figured out a business model and marketing strategy, and they've killed it in the execution.

Every platform their on shares their story, shows off their products and entertains their audience but let's take a deeper dive into their Facebook page.

Right off the bat, you see powerful, clean, minimal images on their Facebook. Their cover photos is a lifestyle shoot from their new line. Scroll down, and the first few images you see are from that photo shoot. However, they aren't here to sell clothes; they are selling a story. The story of the women who made your clothes, the adventures that you take these pieces on and the connection we feel for both those things.

In every photo there is one common element, it's a glimpse into the lifestyle you want; Whether that is traveling to far off places, living in a trendy city or staying warm in the original Krochet Kids hat during a snowstorm. It's easy to picture yourself as the subject in these photos making you dream of what your life would be like with a Krochet Kids product in your life.

The next push they give you is the permission to shop. Theirs no guilt trip of buying yet another hat when you know a woman in Uganda hand made it, and you are supporting her and her family. This is further ingrained by knowing that these products were made to last with customer testimonials raving about this brand.

Finally, there's the captions and the call to action. Nowhere on their page do they say "Buy now." In very few captions do they even call you to action to go to the website or to take any action. They know that by putting a product out there, you know what the next step is if you fall in love with it. They don't need to beat a dead horse, as they say.

Instead, their captions speak inspiration. They tell the behind the scenes stories of the founders and the women making your products. They speak to your adventurous side and mention the little things in life that bring you joy. They aren't selling to you, they are showing you inside their world and letting you know you can join any time. That's a powerful way to use Facebook. It's a great way to add value to your customer's life and make it about them and not you. Because in the end, it is about them and what your product or service can do for their life. That's the only reason we buy anything.

If there are three things you could take away from Krochet Kids' Facebook page it's these:

Great photography makes all the difference! - Powerful images that tell a story, showcase your products and connect with your audience will do more favors for you than any other kind of marketing. Keep them clean and simple.

Showcase the lifestyle that your customers can dream themselves into - Through captions, video and photography show your customers what their lives could look like. Paint a vivid image for them so that it's not hard to picture.

Stop selling to your customers - They know that if there is a product in your images or talked about on a post, it's up for sale. Use the purchase tags on Facebook to provide an easy way for them to find your product without selling. Instead, use captions that inspire and entertain. My favorite call to action on the Krochet Kids' Facebook page was "Tap to meet the new 'Astrid' pant."

As a business, you'll always find yourself "selling" at some point. That's fine, it happens. Aim to sell in only a quarter of your posts (1 in 4) so that it doesn't feel like that's all you care about. Your audience wants to know that they are important too so engage with them. Bring them the content that they want to see and that will get them coming back for more and sprinkle your products into the mix.

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It’s no secret that I love TOMS. Obsessed might be the more accurate word, but I digress. I not only Love TOMS shoes, their one-for-one model, and their travel stories but I love the brand they’ve built around all of that. It’s those things and more that make me open almost every email that pops into my inbox.

TOMS has excelled at creating a brand you want to be a part of. How is it that a company that sells the same things that so many other company’s sells become my favorite brand? What makes TOMS the brand I never stop thinking about and love getting emails from? I’ll tell you!

Let’s start with my favorite topic, photography. TOMS provides high-quality photos in every email that show off the product and in most cases show off the lifestyle too. Every email has a product shot on a pure white background with shoes styled in different ways, usually showcasing an adult shoe with a matching child’s shoe (making me forward almost all of these to my sister-in-law so that she and my niece can be cute together).

The second image is always a lifestyle image if there is a second image. The product in the first image doesn’t have to be present but the same feel of colors, season and style are. This photo says “You can be as cool and gorgeous as this girl right here when you buy a pair of TOMS” and I believe it.

Every email focuses on one thing. TOMS keeps track of what I’ve ordered in the past, what I view now and which emails I click through to see where my interests lie. This makes every email fun to open because I know it’s tailored just for me and will be something I love!

Their emails short. There’s a line of text to give you context and the rests are buttons and photos. It takes two minutes to scroll through their email and make a decision. I want to see what’s out there, decide whether I can afford a purchase today, maybe forward it to a friend who would like it and then I’m out!

Finally, there’s the simplistic design. TOMS loves white space and still finds places for their signature blue. The buttons are simple outlines to add white space, and the little-handwritten notes make you feel like it’s come from a friend. The care and thought that goes into each email is noticed in all of TOMS marketing and I’m even more amazed that they send a new email every day (Even more surprising is I open 90% of them!)

You don’t need to have an email for every day of the week. You might not have a significant email list or the tools to track interest, but you can be making your emails just as beautiful. Keep them simple. Avoid too much text (test things out and see how your click rate changes with the change of text) and highlight the specific product you want your customers to know about. Of course, only use the highest quality images in your marketing that proves you care just as much about your business as you think your customer should.

The internet is a beautiful place. Where else could you go to get all your questions answered and resources provided? As business owners, it’s easy to feel like you have the world at your fingertips just by having this thing called the internet. But hold up! With great power comes great responsibility and there are a lot more rules out there than you know.

As business owners, we want to save money and still have a brand that touches our customers. For that we need images. High-quality, large format photos aren’t always easy to come by. Because of that, we look through Google Images hoping to find something that will work for us and use in our marketing. There’s only one problem with that; it’s not legal. As soon as a person creates something a Copyright is applied giving the creator full rights to their creation. The author alone has the right to reproduce, create derivative works, distribute and publicly display their work throughout their lifetime and 25 years after. There are limitations to this when it comes to employing a person (not hiring a freelance photographer such as a wedding, portrait or commercial photographer who only shoots for you once.)

The thing with copyright laws is it will end up costing you a lot more for that free photo then it would have for you to hire a photographer or take the time to find royalty-free images (copyrighted images that do not require a licensing fee.) In many cases, copyright infringement goes unnoticed. In the few cases that it is caught, here's how it will break down. First, the owner of the copyrighted material will reach out asking for credit and or a licensing payment. Next, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) will be notified asking to have the photo taken down. If the DMCA finds that you are using copyrighted material, they have permission to remove it from your website. Next, you'll receive a cease and desist Letter. If the images are still not paid for or taken down a copyright infringement lawsuit is put in place. In both the asking for a licensing fee, usually raised 3X the original price for infringing the copyright, or the lawsuit you'll end up paying an amount that's sure to break the bank. Now, don't you wish you bought photos that matched your brand and didn't come with this hassle?

Google Images, while limited, does have royalty free images. Under the settings tab you’ll find “Usage Rights” with a few different options; “Labeled For Reuse” will keep you covered no matter who you are. If you’re a company wanting to use these images commercially (On your website, in your marketing, etc.) the “Labeled For Reuse” is your safest option. Better than Google (who knew that was a thing?) are the royalty-free stock image sites. Websites like Unsplash, Pexels, and Pixabay provide images to the public at no cost without the requirement of giving authorship.

“More precisely, Unsplash grants you an irrevocable, non-exclusive copyright license to download, copy, modify, distribute, perform, and use photos from Unsplash for free, including for commercial purposes, without permission from or attributing the photographer or Unsplash. This license does not include the right to compile photos from Unsplash to replicate a similar or competing service.”

Photographers from around the world upload their works to these sites offering people a way to enhance their brand. The images on these sites, while incredible are limiting in what content you’ll find and are free to use by everyone, you’ll often see these photos on other people’s Instagram, social ads, etc.

Copyright law is pretty simple. If you didn’t create it, you didn’t buy it, and you can’t find the specific permissions to use it, you probably shouldn’t use it. Stick with royalty-free websites that plainly say you have permission to use these photos or invest in a photographer that will give you the specific images you’ve been searching for anyway. It’s easy to think that you can use any photo you come across, but the truth of the matter is, free images can be a lot more expensive than just buying the ones you actually want.

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Right before I left for my trip to Nepal in 2016, I got the iPhone 6. That just shows how long ago that trip was. I was the photographer for an Australian group called Adventure fit, heading to the basecamp of Everest. While my Nikon D7100 was my camera of choice back then (I’ve since upgraded to the D800), I still wanted an easy to use camera I could pull out real quick to snap some extra photos. The iPhone 6 with the best camera to date, was perfect for this and it did come in handy while traveling through Asia.

I'm often asked about my gear as a photographer because there's a belief that the tools make the artist. The truth is that an artist can use what tools they have and that's what is on hand. Carrying my large, heavy and really expensive camera with me everywhere I go is not realistic. I need a tool that's easy to bring along to whatever I'm doing and still allow me to capture the stories around me when I'm not on a shoot.

Not surprisingly my iPhone 6 started breaking down this week which meant it was time for an upgrade. While I’d love to say that I went straight to the phone with the best camera, I didn’t. I stayed with Apple phone I could afford right now and stuck with the iPhone8 Plus. The smartphones coming out have impressive cameras in them no matter the model you get; As good as the Coolpix red point-and-shoot camera I saved up to buy when I was 16.

All this to say is that when you are looking for a phone that’s right for you or even the camera that's right for you, it’s essential to make a list of all the features that you need and find the tools that fit that along with your budget. If you are looking for a new phone and the camera is the most crucial feature then check out this article. They did a much better job than I could have at comparing the top camera phones out there. As for me, I'll just be over here geeking out on my new phone falling in love with portrait mode.

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White Balance, while not one of the three pillars of photography, is still high on the list of priorities when taking a photo. Measured in Kelvin, white balance determines the overall color of an image by setting the tone of whites in your image. A warmer image has white tones that lean towards yellows and oranges while a cool white balance has more of a white with blue hues.

Kelvin is the measure of temperature as it relates to color. The colder the color of an image, the more Kelvin it needs to warm it up. Sunsets are already warm which is why they only need a kelvin setting of 2,500, however, when the clouds roll in, and a thunderstorm is about to hit, everything becomes dark and cooler lacking a higher Kelvin (9,000-10,000) to balance it out. The way of thinking is that Kelvin is essentially adding warm. The colder the tones in your image, the more you should add some warmth and vice versa. However, this is 100% a personal choice. The white balance of a photo is one of the critical ways of telling a story and adding drama. Let's look at a few examples.

Making Your White Balance Warm

While the majority of my photos sit on a pretty neutral white balance, meaning that white's are at their whitest, this isn't always true. The picture above is an excellent example of warming up a photo to emphasize a story and make things pop. Taken during the Fall and close to sunset it doesn't feel unnatural to warm it up and make the Fall leaves pop. When you keep this photo full neutral, it loses its striking power that draws the viewer in. Another significant point is that the warm colors frame the whites parts of the image adding even more of an emphasis to the subjects.

Another great example of keeping things warms happens around the holidays. With Christmas lights, staying indoors and avoiding the cold and "blue" outdoors photos often become warm around Christmas photos or most photos taking place indoors. The warm creates a safe and warm feeling. It brings you back to your childhood memories of feeling safe. Warm images have a much more nostalgic and loving feel to them than cooler images.

Making Your White Balance Cold

Just like there is always a time to use a warm white balance there is also a time to use a cool one. White balances that fall to the blue side of the color spectrum are usually looking for high impact, drama or sadness. These are the things we most associate with blue based images. Let's take a look at a couple of examples.

This photo pushes the blues to get the drama of the sky. Clouds coming in and storms brewing are one of the most popular ways of emphasizing a blue, white balance, but the sun going down and grabbing a night shot is another way. It adds more drama by depicting the emotions of depression. We associate the sun going away as something sad which produces pure white light. In this photo, we see that the sun is gone and the environment is now dark and cold. With the change of environment, we feel the presence of doom or sadness and start to associate blue tones with that. (There is the character of Sadness in "Inside Out" who is also blue, which is a spectacular example of our associations of the color blue.)

Without losing the sun entirely there is another way to show off blue tones and that's being in the forest. With the dense tree foliage above you, there is less sunlight coming in; less sun means less warmth which leads to, you guessed it, more blue hues. Once again the blue adds drama. It creates a bit of a feeling of isolation. The photo above would look different if it were warm. You would think he was standing next to the river at sunset thinking lovely happy thoughts. You lose the feel of adventure in this photo when it becomes warm.

So what have we learned about white balance? While Kelvin will help you achieve a pure white balance in whatever situation you are in, it's always great to play around with the white balance and see how it can change your story. It's a great idea to ask yourself what you want your audience to feel, what is the goal of the photos you are sharing and change things up from there. As a starting point, I always shoot my pictures with perfect white balance. I try to get everything just right in camera (just a hair underexposed, accurate white balance, and the sharpness that I'm known for). From there you can always change the little things in post-production. But remember you want to leave as little editing in post as possible, so start by taking an excellent photo first!

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I love working on my website. It's an obsession I have. Or it's that feeling of being a coder in an action movie where I'm saving the world on the back of a website. Not that I could do that, but a girl can dream can't she?

I do enjoy learning about coding, trying new things and finding new ways to improve my website and add value to the lives of my readers (that's you, I hope you're enjoying things!). Some of the things I've come to learn in my time of editing websites is the importance of loading speed and SEO. While I stress the importance of impeccable design and even better photos (that's why we're all here), none of that will matter if your site doesn't load fast enough and your customers leave before seeing your beautiful website. At the same time, if the search engines aren't finding you, then the speed of your site won't make a difference.

One of the fastest ways to improve your website's speed is to optimize your images. Photos tend to weigh down your site speed because you have to download them every time you open a page. Depending on how large of photos you are uploading to your site will determine how much time a page takes to load. Downsizing your images doesn't mean that you should forfeit quality. On the contrary, quality is always your goal. However, there are a few tricks you can use to decrease the size of your images and keep them looking flawless for your website.

To optimize your photos, you'll need editing software. I'll show you two different examples, Photoshop and Canva, but the same principle is valid with any software.

Optimize Photos With Photoshop

If you're using WordPress optimizing your photos is easy. Open up the image in your media library or by editing it in a post (use the pencil button when the image is clicked on) and edit the original. An editing box will open up, and all you have to do is change the dimensions. I change the width to 1,000 pixels to keep things simple and make sure that everything looks good on different computers.

When you open a photo in photoshop, you'll need to get into the image size panel through the Image button on the main menu. From there you'll adjust your images to a size that fits your needs. Here's what you need to remember, your resolution should never be above 150. In all reality, you can take it down to 72dpi since all digital screens use 72dpi, but I often like it at 150. You'll want to adjust the resolution first since it will alter your height and width, but you'll change those right after. When you change your resolution and your pixel sizes you can only go down, don't go up. Increasing these numbers will degrade the quality of your images so just don't do it.

Update the resolution to something between 72-150dpi then adjust your width to 1,000 pixels.

In the case of websites, I shrink my longest side down to 1,000 pixels usually. You can choose to make yours larger just in case, but I've found this to be a safe number for any screen size. Once you've changed your pixel sizes and resolution, it's time to save the image. PNG work well on social media, but they are larger file sizes. To ensure that your photos are taking up to much bandwidth save all images as a JPEG.

Create a board in Canva to the desired size of your photo (width of 1,000 pixels) then drop in your image.

Optimize Photos With Canva

Not everyone has Photoshop (even though a subscription for that an Lightroom combined is only $10 a month!), so if you are working on a tight budget but still want smaller images for your website, then Canva is the place for you. Canva is the beginners Photoshop. With layouts for social media posts, posters and everything else you can think of that you might need for graphic design it's a great place to make quick graphics for your business. It's also an easy way to optimize photos when you don't have a real photography editor.

Export your image as a JPG to decrease the file size.

After you make an account with Canva, you'll have a chance to create a board. If you make a custom board, you can choose the specific size of images you want for your website. You'll have to do all horizontal photos at one time and then the vertical images, but beggars can't be choosers. Type in the size you want, remembering that your width should almost always be 1000 (for the use of blog posts or elsewhere on your website). Then you can upload the images you want, drop them onto the board and export them one by one. Canva gives you different file options for exporting and just like with photoshop I recommend exporting your images as jpgs. The goal with any exported image is to be no more than 1-2MB in size.

Update your Alt Text so that search engines can find you. Remember to use keywords that people will use to search for your business.

SEO and Images

Don't think I forgot about the SEO of your images. Customers can't see your products and your story if they can't get to your website. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is no simple concept. Its the repetitive words in a site that search engines read and realize that your content is relevant to a user's search. Search engines have increased their game in the last few years so that search results are more accurate than ever and it's the use of SEO that continues to make this happen. When a search engine looks at your site, it's looking for a word or phrase and relevant phrases throughout your code to see if you are what a user is looking for. While the text on your website should always include the keywords you hope customers use to find you, your pictures should have them too!

On Wix update the "Tell Google" box with your Alt Text.

Whether you're using WordPress (like I do) or a drag and drop site like Wix, Weebly or Squarespace, they all have ways to name photos and create "Alt Tags." Every image you add to your site should use these two tags to their advantage. The title of the image will mostly help you when you are looking for pictures on your website. It's great to name pictures after its use, the product that's in it or the season for the product. The Renaming of photos are mostly for organizational use, but it can also serve as a bottom of the barrel form of SEO. You're Alt Tag is the real key to optimizing your photos for SEO. Search Engines use the Alt Tag to "see" photos. Since it's a machine doing the searching, it needs text to tell them what's in the photo. Your description is what helps you pop up in Google searches for images but can also serve as more keywords adding up to rank you on a Google page.

On WordPress, you can double-click on an image or go to your Media library to change the names and Alt Tags of all your pictures. Do some keyword research for your business and determine the words you want your company to focus on and then use them in these Alt Tags. Remember that the photos need to be relevant to what you are tagging them so saying "Sunglasses" in every image you post isn't helpful, search engines know when you are spamming them. Instead, describe the products in a picture or locations that are relevant to your audience.

Your website is your first impression to many of your customers; you don't want to disappoint them before they even get started. Optimizing your website, while time-consuming, can make all the difference in creating an excellent experience for your customers. If you're wondering how your website holds up, you can test your site speed with Pingdom. This site will let you know how long it takes to load your site and what's bogging it down. If it takes more than 1.5 seconds to load, you've got some optimizing to do!

If you've got questions on optimization or want to share the tips you've learned, feel free to leave a comment below!

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